The Courage to Be Stupid

We spend so much of life trying not to look foolish. We polish our words, perfect our image, and perform certainty — all to hide the places we feel unsure.

But what if the moments we call stupid are actually moments of sacred openness?

In this tender conversation, Thomas explores the lifelong pattern of masking vulnerability with knowing, and the healing that comes when we meet our own uncertainty with compassion instead of shame.

Drawing on Gangaji’s invitation to “be willing to be stupid,” Jungian psychology, and modern neuroscience, he reveals how the courage to not know can free us from perfectionism and deepen our connection to self and others.

Featuring insights from Esther Perel and rest activist Tricia Hersey, this episode invites listeners to reclaim curiosity, humility, and the quiet brilliance that lives inside imperfection.

It includes a gentle, heart-based practice, The Three-Step Pause, for the moments you feel the urge to cover up instead of open up.

A reminder that wisdom isn’t found in having all the answers. It begins in the willingness to learn out loud.

What if thriving isn’t the opposite of surviving?

In this episode, Thomas explores the beautiful tension between the two, a hybrid he calls SurThriving. With warmth, humor, and a dose of neuroscience, he unpacks how endurance becomes evolution and how survival itself can be sacred.

Thomas shares a personal story from his memoir Little Fag: A Story of Self-Acceptance and Healing, and draws wisdom from Dr. Thema Bryant, Brittney Cooper, Rachel Cargle, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Ocean Vuong.

You’ll learn two SurThriving Practices:

The Daily Debrief — a two-minute ritual to reframe survival as wisdom.
The Joy Rebellion — a practice of choosing delight as a radical act of healing.

Because somewhere between holding on and letting go, we find the rhythm of being beautifully, imperfectly human.

What if the moments that shook your world weren’t breakdowns at all, but breakthroughs in disguise?

In this episode of Conversations with Thomas, we explore lifequakes—those soul-rattling events that crack open who we thought we were so something more authentic can emerge.

Thomas shares a deeply personal story from his football years, where a single sentence from his mother became a fault line that split his life into before and after. From that heartbreak came his awakening: the realization that love, belonging, and worth can’t be earned through performance.

Blending humor, science, and soul, Thomas unpacks how our brains respond to massive change, why laughter is the body’s most underrated healing tool, and how to rebuild your life with more truth and less pretending.

You’ll also learn a heart-led practice called “Aftershocks of Kindness”—a simple but powerful way to find grace in the rubble and start rebuilding from love.

If you’ve ever lost your footing, questioned your purpose, or wondered what’s left when everything familiar falls away, this episode will remind you:
You’re not falling apart. You’re falling true.

Listen now and rediscover your power to rebuild from the heart.